The many paths to covenantal leadership: Traditional resources for contemporary business

Many corporate managers are increasingly looking to the covenant model for inspiration, guidance, and most of all, practical business wisdom. While so me managers seemingly exploit the religiously inspired language of covenant for purely self-interested reasons, other managers and executives like Tom Chappell of Tom's of Maine, Max De Pree of Herman Miller, Aaron Feurstein of Malden Mills, and C. William Pollard of ServiceMaster, express an authen tic attachment to the idea. While these executives have been the most artic ulate and the most extreme spokesmen for the application of the covenant mo del for business, other companies have attempted to benefit from the concep t, albeit in less explicitly religious terms. Our research suggests that the most fundamental answer to the question of w hat makes a "business covenant" work is - covenantal leadership. Simply put , but easily forgotten, the one thesis which emerges over and over again in our research is that covenantal organizations require covenantal leadershi p. Covenantal leadership is not a single characteristic or virtue, rather ther e are many paths to covenantal leadership. This article introduces some of these and examines their applications to contemporary business.